Valentine’s week is here. And I found myself considering what self-love meant to me. Undoubtedly we can not truly pay someone the attention and respect of love unselfishly if we do not have some to spare from our own hearts. But what does self-love look like at it’s best. And can we court or woo ourselves into liking us better?

Self-love
is part care-taking and part self-compassion. It’s being a good
parent and a gracious host.

I
love myself when I eat good for me food I’m happy to eat and that’s
yummy too.

I
love myself when I spend time with my friends chatting and laughing.

I
love myself when I go to the gym and get exercised.

I
love myself when I listen to my aches and go to the doctor to check
them out.

I
love myself when I tell myself I can and I do.

I love myself when I pamper me with hairdos and pedicures and new slippers.

I
love myself when I sit in front of the fire with my laptop and write.

I
love myself when I choose to acknowledge something I’m good at rather
than bad at.

I
love myself when I figure out the tech to be able to listen to good
music in the car.

I
love myself when I commit to my creativity.

I love myself when I know I did a good job parenting today.

I love myself when I don’t overwhelm myself with too much to do.

I
hope everyone has a Lovely Valentine’s day this week and that you
shower yourself with intentional self-love too!

And
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I
am in the process of clearing and cleaning out my files and shelves
in January. After my collapse of November, I decided that all goals
and shoulds from last year are suspect. Because I truly got the
sense that I was striving for much of that based on what I thought I
should be doing.

But
I couldn’t help but think, when do many of us have the opportunity or
are encouraged to live for our own happiness? As women, we are
programmed to take care of other’s happiness. As children of
narcissists, we are not supposed to exist but for their needs. Our
compliance to the rules of nice all but squelch who we truly are and
we give up trying to figure it out.

So again, I am truly focusing on that which makes me happy. Being with my people and communicating with my community make me extremely happy. That’s my zone. Writing makes me happy. And creating and decorating always makes me happy. This much I know. How this gets spun into a purpose that I scream, “oh my gosh that’s exactly what I need to do!”, I am unsure. But I’m focused.

And
If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in
the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit
me on Instagram to
see my daily pictures, friend
me or like my
page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter
or Pinterest
too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me
please. I live for conversations.

January is the month of purging and cleaning. And there’s just as much of this going on inside me as well as inside my house. In many ways I feel I am starting over with who I see myself to be as the anxious me has met its match in the medicine I’m taking. I feel like the space I am making is for the new me to move in.

So I am making space for
me to move back into my life my spaces. Clearing the corners out so I
can expand into them. Letting go of what no longer reflects and
serves me. This is not a new concept. I remember a woman named Gail
Blanke who made a quick mint selling her book, Throw
Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life. And I embraces
the concept then as I do now.

We are not static beings. If we evolve then that must mean that most of the flotsam and jetsum that we create from our workings becomes obsolete. We are not even the same person we were last week much less last decade. I do draw the line of discarding stuff at my journals however. Some women were discussing how they either didn’t want to burden their heirs with the collection of their life spewings or they just didn’t want anyone else reading them. I have no problem with either.

So
I am continuing to decide what is important to me. What thoughts make
me happy. I saw myself in a vision with a lion’s mane type aura.
Pride perhaps? I need room to make that happen. So all the bins with
stuff are leaving my craft room and there’s just space, glorious
space for me to expand me into.

And
If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in
the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit
me on Instagram to
see my daily pictures, friend
me or like my
page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter
or Pinterest
too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me
please. I live for conversations.

The stillness of the house is like a pond in a winter’s morning. It beckons me to sit and just listen to the tick of the clock like a cricket in the weeds. Instead of leaping up and jumping in, I sat down and napped in the yawning silence. I haven’t had time to myself in a week and a half.

I organized my linen closet yesterday because I asked for new towels for Christmas. I filled three trash bags full of stuff I don’t need anymore or maybe never needed. A white matelasse bedspread I’ll never use as well as old towels and curtains. The new year’s purge has begun and halted.

I am standing slightly timid at the possibility to actually create a year that I want to live instead of shoving myself through the motions of a year I think I Ought to be living. I want a year of coulds instead of shoulds. When I hear the sole bird singing in the morning hours, he is singing for the possibilities.

Guided by my word for 2019, Focus, I will sift through my life’s leftover belongings purposefully searching for my possibilities and ditching the forced goals of 2018. I will acknowledge my fears and query my worries and entertain my what ifs. And I will slather myself with heaps of compassion during the process.

I am considering how I want my blog to serve me instead of me being enslaved by it. So excuse the tardiness of my post today as I gather and test my thoughts.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

( From December 2014 and last year, I adore this look back ) The sound was a thwap and a roll, hollow plastic bouncing and traveling across the floor. My new Christmas tree balls were this moment’s entertainment. The “ball balls” were being extracted from their big clear box and thrown while I hurried to put my laundry away. Although that’s exactly why I bought those, I underestimated the little monkey’s reasoning skills.

Every day is jam-packed with holiday fun.

Not unlike any other day in my life, I’ve been cramming the carrying out of Christmas details into the tiny time slots when I’m kid free. I got started early! Then stalled. And then the holiday started to close in on me and every other person in the free First world.

No one to impress but me, I knew I had time. But the tree had been lit and yet naked for a week. On the heels of the Christmas ball shot put incident, the unearthing of ribbon and tinsel garland set off a playing frenzy with Fiona dragging the garland around screaming “Mine, Mine” while the cat chased and pounced on the end. I’m not accustomed to the toddler mayhem yet. I like my holiday decorating to be quiet thinking time for me. Ha!

Today was cookie making day as well. My son and husband conceived that cookies would be Eamon’s offering to the school class party. I apparently was no where around for this important strategy tete a tete because I am no cookie baker. And alas, Pilsbury’s Sugar cookies with embedded Christmas tree designs that you just cut and bake were all gone from the grocery store’s refrigerated section. So I talked myself up into helping Eamon make chocolate chip and sugar cookies. From scratch.

I hate baking because I’m a cook. Exact measurements? And a toddler who refused to eat her dinner and is now milling around your feet and now falling off the step stool knocking sprinkles everywhere? Call them disaster cookies.

I was feeling generally hostile and irritated and pulled out just enough patience to have Eamon do most of the work. And yes, for her sake and mine, I sent Fiona out to Dada who was doing train garden setting up.

I enjoy my domesticity straight up. I am good with all the ten million details of Christmas but I just want to do them alone. No I don’t want to ever bake cookies with the kids again unless they are well-behaved young adults. No they won’t ever be decorating my Christmas tree unless they’ve proven to have tree decorating abilities. And yes, I will totally take advantage of their cute art project creations to make gifts for people at Christmas and cash in on their one absolute contribution. Creative mindless fun. The rest of Christmas is serious business and better left to the professionals.

Merry Christmas to all you perfectionistic special event planners and decorators otherwise known as moms across the world. You’ve given enough. Take a seat and enjoy the event because it’ll be over in a blink.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a teen, a six year-old, and I turned 52 this year. This blog was born in 2011 and my hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.

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